The Stone Age site Riņņukalns, Latvia, is the only well-stratified shell midden in the Eastern Baltic. In this paper, we present new interdisciplinary results concerning its dating, stratigraphy, features, and finds to shed light on the daily life of a fisher population prior to the introduction of domesticated animals. The undisturbed part of the midden consists of alternating layers of unburnt mussel shell, burnt mussel shell and fish bone, containing artefacts, some mammal and bird bones, and human burials. Two of them, an adult man and a baby, are discovered recently and date to the calibration plateau between 3350 and 3100 cal BC, and to the later 4th millennium, respectively. Stable isotopes suggest a diet based heavily on freshwater fish, and this is supported not only by ten thousands of identified fish remains, but also by a fish bone concentration nearby the skull of the man, which is interpreted as remain of a grave gift (possible fish soup). Of special interest are the baby’s stable isotope values. It shows that the mother’s diet was atypical (perhaps because she was non-local), and/or that dietary stress during pregnancy increased fractionation between the mother’s diet and her bloodstream

The Bronze Age site in the Tollense valley, Germany, has yielded thousands of human and animal bones and a number of archaeological artifacts. Several of the human bones exhibit blunt and sharp force lesions, and the assemblage has been interpreted as representing victims of a large scale conflict. One of the earliest finds is a human humerus with an embedded flint arrowhead. Alleged signs of healing initially reported for this humerus based on clinical CT imaging were interpreted as evidence of an antemortem lesion. The present study, using micro-CT imaging, revealed that the arrowhead lesion in the humerus, contrary to the previous interpretation, shows no signs of healing. The structure previously assumed to represent a sclerotic margin around the wound canal was shown to actually represent compacted trabecular debris. Thus, our re-analysis of the specimen led to a re-classification of the arrow wound as a perimortem lesion. The findings of the present study demonstrate the value of micro-CT imaging as a non-destructive method for obtaining information on the nature of bone lesions and healing reactions critical for the reconstruction of interpersonal conflict scenarios in the past.